Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Vocabulary Building Activities

English teachers are always looking for new ways to teach vocabulary. Sometimes, telling students to "write the definition in your own words" or "use the word in a sentence" just isn't going to cut it. Here are a few fun ideas:

Write key vocabulary terms all over the board. One at a time, students come up to the board, choose a word to erase, and tell the class something about that word. You can support your struggling students by choosing the order that the students come to the board in a strategic manner. You might also decide to give the words to students ahead of time to reduce anxiety.

Play What's Up. This app, promoted by Ellen Degeneres, has an add on that allows you to enter your own words. You can enter vocabulary words and have the students play. Player one holds the phone or iPad with the word to his or her forehead while player two tries to get player one to guess the word.

Play Funglish. This is another idea from Ellen... she must love English teachers! There are three categories- "Definitely," "Not," and "Kind of." Students put descriptive words in these categories to try to get the class to guess the word.